Author – Josh, Duncan and Evan
The three of us had been out on the town in a limited way now that lockdowns were easing and ended up at 3am about 7 or 8 miles from home so a taxi was needed, we flagged one down and he was happy to take us but wanted to be paid up front, Evan said he would gladly pay but his cash was at home so the driver could not get paid up front, the driver demanded our shoes as a “deposit” we tried to ague but the more we argued the more determined he got, I took off my Doc Martens boots and handed them over leaving me in my stripey blue socks Duncan took off his vans leaving him in his white socks with blue toes and heels and Evan pulled off his scruffy trainers leaving him barefoot. So we had given him our footwear and he threw them into the boot, The rest of the journey to Evan’s house was a rather quiet and grumpy one with the three of us sat in the back of the cab in our socks. The journey seemed to be taking longer than we expected and we passed a sign I recognised as heading in the direction we should have been going. I pointed this out to the driver and he started to argue aggressively speeding up as he did so during this time he had been chatting on his radio but we did not understand what he was saying as he was speaking in his own language. After about half an hour he pulled into a large layby at the side of the road, in the layby were 3 other taxis from the same company and the drivers were standing about chatting, as we pulled up they came over and opened the door, ordering us out of the car. We were stood in the layby miles from home in our socked feet or in Evan’s case his bare feet. Our driver shouted to us as he locked the doors, well guys this will maybe teach you to get in a taxi without the money to pay – enjoy your walk. We stood watching the red tail lights vanish in the distance and prepared for a long walk home shoeless and far from happy, to make matters worse lots of people beeped their horns as they passed just to add to our misery.